Importing & Exporting Hierarchical Files

[BarbAnn27]

Fellow Actinic-ers,

This is my first ever post - so be gentle!

We're in the process of building a new site in 8.5.1 on Vista and many times throughout the build we have exported the catalog, updated the data and re-imported it, using the hierarchical file process.

Yesterday, we exported the file as normal, made a few changes and tried to import it. The message we've been getting is:

'An unexpected error occurred while trying to carry out the import. Please check your settings and try again.'

We've tried exporting and then importing, without making any changes, and it still won't go in - arrrrggggghhhhhh.

We've checked through other posts and done the usual things like the final columns got something in it etc.

Can anyone give us any tips were we might be going wrong?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give,

Lisa

[pinbrook]

Can you go back to the latest snapshot where it worked...

and then export/import without making any changes

[leehack]

Usually a needle in haystack problem. If you are not getting a line number of the error, then go back to last working version and start again.

[BarbAnn27]

Thanks for your advice,

Didn't want to go there unless we really had to - done quite a bit of tweaking since the last back up.

Looks like we don't have much choice though.

[BarbAnn27]

OK.

Here it is, we've gone back 3 versions and we can't import! ?????

We've definately exported and imported in one of these versions.

Anybody.............help, please.

[los_design]

OK.

Here it is, we've gone back 3 versions and we can't import! ?????

We've definately exported and imported in one of these versions.

Anybody.............help, please.

As a bit of a helper for future issues, we work predominantely with csv/excel for client sites (in particular for heirachy import) and when we make changes we do it in bite size chunks and save with a version designation.

This allows greater tracing capabilities should something go amiss and as Lee states, when you deal with 1000's of items, a needle in a haystack is optimistic at best if you back up after you have completed a long run of changes.

May be teaching you how to suck eggs but we thought it was worth a mention for reference.

Regards

[BarbAnn27]

UPDATE: Importing & Exporting Hierarchical Files

Dear Actinic'ers,

UPDATE.

After the nightmare we had last week, and the advice of people on this forum, we went back to the very beginning.

So brand new install of Actinic V8.5.1 on Vista and running Microsoft Office 2007 correction 2003.

OK here's the rub, we have exported the catalog from the 'out of the box' site1 (Great Expectations etc.) and tried to import it and - it don't bl**dy work!!!!

We get the error message:
'An unexpected error occurred whilst trying to carry out the import. Please check your settings and try again.'

I wonder if someone from Actinic can try this using the same set-up as we are.

Help please this is mighty frustrating. (that's putting it politely)

Lisa

[Bruce]

Lisa,

I see that you have this with support at the moment. I have tried an export on Vista Business and the reimport works fine, when the catalog exports, Actinic asks "Do you want to turn off Read only flag for this file", I selected 'Yes' and the import worked just fine.

Kind regards,

[BarbAnn27]

Two Months Later

Bruce

You are correct that this is with support where it has been since the 25th June, nearly two months now.

Four weeks ago we were told that the specification on our machine was an issue, when we pointed out that we actually have twice the specification that is advertised on the Actinic Site the problem changed to one that would be fixed in a patch within the next three weeks.

Quite how a patch is going to fix the specification on our machine we can’t wait to see.

So this morning we contact support to find out where the patch is only to be told that it’s now being fixed in the next release which has just entered Alpha testing and has no target release date yet.

It’s absolutely appalling that after two months Actinic can’t even tell us what the problem is or how we can work around it but we supposed to believe that a problem that can’t be explained is going to be fixed in the next release.

We are now faced with three unpalatable options: -

• Start entering 500 products and 80 associated variables manually
  
• Go live with a product range that is greatly reduced
  
• Downgrade our new Vista machine to Windows 2000, re-setup Actinic and then re-establish all of the other applications we have just spent two weeks configuring and testing.

In other posts Actinic has committed to providing better support when their product fails to perform, this has not been our experience, so what next? We are now left reluctantly counting the cost of the problem and seeking redress through the County Courts.

This is not a position that we want to be in and it’s a major distraction from setting up our business but we just can’t wait any longer for Actinic to bring their product up to a level where it performs as they advertised it and we're not prepared to continue spending our money to work around Actinic's problems.

[Ben]

Lisa

I can only apologise for how long this has taken to be investigated. It was a tricky issue to reproduce and therefore find the cause. However, I have chatted it through with our developers today and we should have a fix available for you next week. Paul in Support has sent you an email with the details.

Ben

[BarbAnn27]

Update

Ben

Your post 17th August indicates that fix will be available within the week, which by my calculation means that it should have been with us by the 24th of August at the latest.

Surprise, Surprise, here we are on the 7th September and still no indication of what the problem is or when we are going to be provided with a solution.

In addition the promised dates given by email have come and gone.

We are now rapidy approaching the three month point on this issue which is absolutely appalling even by Actinics poor standards of service.

Could you please explain why your website still advertises functionality that Actinic knows that it cannot deliver, surely it is illegal to continue taking money from people when you know your software cannot deliver its promises.

You have now commited to provide a patch by the end of the day, probably best we dont hold our breath.

Yours extremely frustrated and lots of other words best not printed.